The webbrowser module provides a high-level interface to allow displaying
Web-based documents to users. Under most circumstances, simply calling the
open() function from this module will do the right thing.

Under Unix, graphical browsers are preferred under X11, but text-mode browsers
will be used if graphical browsers are not available or an X11 display isn’t
available. If text-mode browsers are used, the calling process will block until
the user exits the browser.

If the environment variable BROWSER exists, it is interpreted to
override the platform default list of browsers, as a os.pathsep-separated
list of browsers to try in order. When the value of a list part contains the
string %s, then it is interpreted as a literal browser command line to be
used with the argument URL substituted for %s; if the part does not contain
%s, it is simply interpreted as the name of the browser to launch. [1]

For non-Unix platforms, or when a remote browser is available on Unix, the
controlling process will not wait for the user to finish with the browser, but
allow the remote browser to maintain its own windows on the display. If remote
browsers are not available on Unix, the controlling process will launch a new
browser and wait.

The script webbrowser can be used as a command-line interface for the
module. It accepts an URL as the argument. It accepts the following optional
parameters: -n opens the URL in a new browser window, if possible;
-t opens the URL in a new browser page (“tab”). The options are,
naturally, mutually exclusive. Usage example:

Display url using the default browser. If new is 0, the url is opened
in the same browser window if possible. If new is 1, a new browser window
is opened if possible. If new is 2, a new browser page (“tab”) is opened
if possible. If autoraise is True, the window is raised if possible
(note that under many window managers this will occur regardless of the
setting of this variable).

Note that on some platforms, trying to open a filename using this function,
may work and start the operating system’s associated program. However, this
is neither supported nor portable.

Register the browser type name. Once a browser type is registered, the
get() function can return a controller for that browser type. If
instance is not provided, or is None, constructor will be called without
parameters to create an instance when needed. If instance is provided,
constructor will never be called, and may be None.

This entry point is only useful if you plan to either set the BROWSER
variable or call get() with a nonempty argument matching the name of a
handler you declare.

A number of browser types are predefined. This table gives the type names that
may be passed to the get() function and the corresponding instantiations
for the controller classes, all defined in this module.

Type Name

Class Name

Notes

'mozilla'

Mozilla('mozilla')

'firefox'

Mozilla('mozilla')

'netscape'

Mozilla('netscape')

'galeon'

Galeon('galeon')

'epiphany'

Galeon('epiphany')

'skipstone'

BackgroundBrowser('skipstone')

'kfmclient'

Konqueror()

(1)

'konqueror'

Konqueror()

(1)

'kfm'

Konqueror()

(1)

'mosaic'

BackgroundBrowser('mosaic')

'opera'

Opera()

'grail'

Grail()

'links'

GenericBrowser('links')

'elinks'

Elinks('elinks')

'lynx'

GenericBrowser('lynx')

'w3m'

GenericBrowser('w3m')

'windows-default'

WindowsDefault

(2)

'macosx'

MacOSX('default')

(3)

'safari'

MacOSX('safari')

(3)

'google-chrome'

Chrome('google-chrome')

'chrome'

Chrome('chrome')

'chromium'

Chromium('chromium')

'chromium-browser'

Chromium('chromium-browser')

Notes:

“Konqueror” is the file manager for the KDE desktop environment for Unix, and
only makes sense to use if KDE is running. Some way of reliably detecting KDE
would be nice; the KDEDIR variable is not sufficient. Note also that
the name “kfm” is used even when using the konqueror command with KDE
2 — the implementation selects the best strategy for running Konqueror.

Only on Windows platforms.

Only on Mac OS X platform.

New in version 3.3: Support for Chrome/Chromium has been added.

Here are some simple examples:

url='http://docs.python.org/'# Open URL in a new tab, if a browser window is already open.webbrowser.open_new_tab(url)# Open URL in new window, raising the window if possible.webbrowser.open_new(url)